Windows 10 Unable to delete a storage space

[RodBarnes]

In the attempt to delete an existing storage space in a storage pool, when I click "Delete storage space" it replies with the message: "Can't delete the storage space. Close all applications that are accessing the storage space, then try again." However, the storage space has been emptied of all files. The only files remaining are the "$RECYCLE.BIN" folder and the "System Volume Information" folder. I went into Recycle bin and set that storage space to "Don't move files to Recycle Bin" but it continues to put the folder back even after I delete it. Same with the "System Volume Information" folder; I've tried deleting it as admin but it won't go away.

I confirmed that none of the special folders (e.g., documents, pictures, etc.) are referencing this storage space.

I also went in and unchecked the "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed..." thinking that might be factor. No juice.

So nothing is using this but the system and the system won't stop using it so I can delete it. Catch 22?

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi Rod,
I think you are looking in the wrong places. This is and has been a common problem for several years with earlier versions of Windows. Some versions of Windows come with SYSTEM RESTORE or SHADOW COPY automatically set to enabled, which is why you can't reclaim all of your storage space. Win7 for instance comes with SYSTEM RESTORE enabled and set to on. Other versions of Windows such as XP, Vista, Win8/8.1 do not; they come disabled and turned off. The owner of the computer has to go in and enable SYSTEM RESTORE to have it working. On the machines I've tested with Win10, this is also enabled and set to on. That means that a portion of your C: drive is automatically reserved for SYSTEM RESTORE snapshots that allow you quickly reset your computer should you download a bad driver or a nasty virus that locks your computer up.

The good news, is that you can manually disable SYSTEM RESTORE on your Win10; let us know if you need help doing this, I think I saw a good instruction link here the last few days on how to do this. It's pretty easy. SYSTEM RESTORE is set to use a default amount of 8% of your disk space for this backup file. For example, on a 1TB hard drive, this is about 80GB or so. On a 100GB drive, 8GB, which is a much bigger chunk. If you are on a smaller drive, and space is at a premium you can adjust the percentage of disk space that Windows allocates for your SYSTEM RESTORE file. You can decrease it to 5% or increase it to 15% for example. Or you can disable it entirely, and then reclaim that extra disk space.

The bad news is that if you disable your SYSTEM RESTORE feature, which I do not recommend doing, you will lose your ability to recover from catastrophic events (faulty driver updates & viruses) in a short period of time. A few hours versus weeks for a manual Win10 rebuild. There are other methods you can use alternatively, such as creating backup Image Clone files using products such as Macrium Reflect or Acronis TrueImage. For this you will need a second internal hard drive or an external USB hard drive depending on whether or not you have a desktop PC or a laptop (most laptops only have 1 internal drive). You can also do online to Cloud image recovery using fee-based Cloud providers such as Carbonite and CrashPlan. These run about $60 a year. Lastly, and most expensive is to upgrade your existing PC if you have a desktop, and install a RAID PCI card controller and use RAID 0, 5, or 10 with multiple disk drives to recover from a catastrophic Windows failure. [clearly a much more expensive and technically challenging effort to implement than the software-based SYSTEM RESTORE].

This is probably more information than you wanted or needed, but I feel it's important to let people know they have alternatives to running SYSTEM RESTORE (which you can tell I really like). Reclaiming that space may be useful in the short run, but if your Windows crashes, and you have a project to get out in 1-2 days, you had better have an alternative to repair it quickly, because otherwise you are looking at 1-3 weeks for a complete rebuild and that would be very bad for you.

Hope this proves helpful,
<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>

 

[RodBarnes]

Thanks for the ideas. I actually was able to delete this last night. I found that in Disk Management I could select the volume and click Delete. It prompted me that this was a Storage Spaces volume and that deleting it my cause errors in the application using it -- which I didn't care about -- and it said to click Yes to go ahead and delete it. It then appeared as an unallocated drive. I then went into Storage Spaces, clicked [Change Settings], deleted the Storage Space (which succeeded) and then deleted the Storage Pool (which also succeeded).

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Glad you figured it out. Thanks for posting back what you did.
How are you going to handle backup/recovery now that you've disabled your SYSTEM RESTORE capability?

Best of luck,
<<<BBJ>>>

 

[RodBarnes]

I actually didn't disable System Restore. Deleting the particular volume using Disk Manager undoubtedly deleted whatever connections may've been for that disk but I still have System Restore capabilities on the system, overall. At the moment, I have all six disks connected as individual disks -- no RAID, no Storage Pool/Space -- while I figure out the best performing configuration.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Thanks for posting back that answer, Rod. Hopefully, that will provide some insight for our other forum users.
It appeas that MS is doing something different with the SYSTEM RESTORE and VOLUME SHADOW COPY than in earlier Windows releases. In the old days, if you deleted the file/folder/volume/partition, you would have gotten an error message telling you that you first have to DISABLE SYSTEM RESTORE prior to doing any of that.

Best of luck,
<<<BBJ>>>

 

[number3]

Thanks for the ideas. I actually was able to delete this last night. I found that in Disk Management I could select the volume and click Delete. It prompted me that this was a Storage Spaces volume and that deleting it my cause errors in the application using it -- which I didn't care about -- and it said to click Yes to go ahead and delete it. It then appeared as an unallocated drive. I then went into Storage Spaces, clicked [Change Settings], deleted the Storage Space (which succeeded) and then deleted the Storage Pool (which also succeeded).

THANK YOU for sharing.. I Had the exact issue and your steps worked perfectly.. !!

 

[RodBarnes]

THANK YOU for sharing.. I Had the exact issue and your steps worked perfectly.. !!

Thanks for posting back. Always makes me smile when I can help someone else!